{"id":1243,"date":"2011-10-25T08:17:19","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T12:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/?p=1243"},"modified":"2018-08-18T00:56:22","modified_gmt":"2018-08-18T04:56:22","slug":"sic-transit-pianisti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/2011\/10\/sic-transit-pianisti.html","title":{"rendered":"Sic transit pianisti"},"content":{"rendered":"

I return to Rotterdam, and it’s as if no time has passed. Four years\u00a0ago, I left very early in the morning, down a street with wood planks\u00a0instead of a sidewalk. The construction is long finished, but I\u00a0return to the thrill of that morning.<\/p>\n

It was October then too. I did a 2-day seminar in Rotterdam, at\u00a0Codarts<\/a>. Following that, something slightly crazy was on my schedule.\u00a0I’d agreed to play, with several other pianists (Robert Levin, John\u00a0Harbison, Sergey Schepkin, Judith Gordon, many more), in a complete\u00a0performance of J. S. Bach’s Art of Fugue<\/em> in Boston. My part of it was\u00a0one Contrapunctus and the Canon in Hypodiapason. The complication — the Boston\u00a0concert was later in the evening of the same day I was leaving\u00a0Rotterdam.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I wouldn’t have planned it that way. The Boston performance was\u00a0scheduled far in advance, and Rotterdam (which paid well) was added to\u00a0my calendar rather late. As long as the train and plane involved were\u00a0on time, it would work.<\/p>\n

I checked out of Hotel Breitner<\/a> around 4 a.m. I took the earliest\u00a0train from Rotterdam to Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. Everything went\u00a0well — I arrived in Boston early enough to make it to a short\u00a0afternoon rehearsal, my chance to try the piano. I believe I went to\u00a0the conservatory and taught one lesson. At the concert, all the\u00a0players sat on stage through the entire performance. For me, the\u00a0experience of playing was emotionally charged — heightened I imagine\u00a0by my travel plans. I remember Bob Levin saying to me later: “Your\u00a0performance was an indictment of one hundred years of modern piano playing!”<\/p>\n

Back in Rotterdam now, I love the modest hotel. I adore Wester Paviljoen<\/a>, a really good caf\u00e9-restaurant just around the corner. Being\u00a0here must remind me of daring the devil, and I like it. It’s a\u00a0comfortable town — but my feelings are about that trip.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It crosses my mind that Paderewski spent the last months of his\u00a0life (1940-41) living at the Buckingham Hotel on 57th Street and Sixth Avenue — across the\u00a0street from Carnegie Hall where the great triumphs of his early career happened in 1891<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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I return to Rotterdam, and it’s as if no time has passed. Four years\u00a0ago, I left very early in the morning, down a street with wood planks\u00a0instead of a sidewalk. The construction is long finished, but I\u00a0return to the thrill of that morning. It was October then too. I did a 2-day seminar in Rotterdam, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[237,289,733,1408,730,728,727,354,732,736,726,729,1409,735,734,731],"class_list":{"0":"post-1243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-bach","9":"tag-carnegie-hall","10":"tag-codarts","11":"tag-craig","12":"tag-hotel-breitner","13":"tag-johann","14":"tag-kunst-der-fuge","15":"tag-paderewski","16":"tag-paviljoen","17":"tag-pianists-life","18":"tag-rotterdam","19":"tag-sebastian","20":"tag-smith","21":"tag-touring","22":"tag-travel","23":"tag-wester","24":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1243"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4811,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243\/revisions\/4811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}